commy mommy propoganda

twist996 · November 3, 2000, 07:39 AM

a fellow 'nut' posted this for us the frugal squirrel http://www.millionmommarch.com/home/...ws&action=info
Gun Crime Drops in Britain Following Tough New
Firearm Laws

In 1996 Thomas Hamilton, a licensed gun owner, used two lawfully
held semi-automatic handguns to shoot to death 16 school children
and their teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. Two
years later in March, 1998 the British government completed its
program to ban all handguns, buying them back from gun owners at
market rates.

In the two years since the destruction of 162,000 civilian-owned
handguns, official figures show that stricter British gun laws were
followed by a 17% reduction in all crimes involving firearms,
excluding air guns. -- (UK Home Office Statistical Bulletin 22/99, 26
Nov 1999; Table 10)

As the UK handgun ban took effect, the most closely-related
category of crime also dropped:

"The number of handgun offences… fell by 21% in 1997, near which
level they have remained."

-- (UK Home Office, Criminal Statistics England & Wales, 1998;
3.10. Mar 2000)

The number of gun-related deaths has also declined markedly. In
1998/99, 49 people were victims of firearm homicide in Britain,
down 66% since 1993.

-- (UK Home Office, Criminal Statistics England & Wales, 1998. Mar
2000)

As they refer exclusively to handgun-related and firearm-related
crime, these data could be the most reliable on which to base an
assessment of the effects of the British handgun ban. However,
less relevant data are often cited to suggest a reverse effect.

The number of reported robberies in Britain has grown markedly in
recent years. However, those who cite this fact rarely mention
that, in the absence of large numbers of firearms in the community,
96-98% of these encounters bear no relation to guns.

"The proportion of robberies in which firearms were used in 1998/99
was 4.4%, continuing the recent downward trend… Some research
suggests that the proportion of real guns used in robberies may be
only about half the estimate obtained from the police."

-- (UK Home Office, Criminal Statistics England & Wales, 1998; 3.13
& 3.25. Mar 2000)

As only 2% to 4% of reported robberies in Britain involve a genuine
firearm, the potential lethality of these encounters would seem to
be greatly reduced. It is hard to see how the number of offences in
which victims are threatened with knives, air guns, toy guns -- or
in one case a cucumber in a coat pocket -- can be cited as
evidence of a crime wave in Britain attributable to the removal of
handguns from civilian ownership. Instead, the apparent
displacement of robbery weapon from firearm to cucumber might be
seen as worthy of encouragement.

British citizens remain 50 times less likely to fall victim to gun
homicide than Americans.

British police officers are unarmed. None were seriously injured by
firearms in 1998/99.

41% of American households contain a firearm, compared to 4% in
Britain

Philip Alpers, gun policy researcher
Auckland & San Francisco
E-mail: alpers@ibm.net April, 2000
------------------------------------------

funny, ain't it, how so many people think britain is having a rough go with gun control, and this guy proves that it just ain't so.....hhhhmmmm, something smells fishy....

------------------
speak now, or forever hold your peace

dischord · November 3, 2000, 10:16 AM

I wrote an essay attacking this $#!t a few months ago. I'll paste it below. Bottom line is that Alpers' essay contains at least two major flaws.

1) He judges the effectiveness of a law passed in 1997 and put into effect in 1998 by looking at trends from 1993.

2) He ignores simultaneous rise in *non* gun murders

Sean

Disordered Post Hoc
How a Gun Controller Pretends Post Dunblane U.K. Laws Were Effective
by Sean Oberle

There is a logical fallacy called Post Hoc, which is short for the Latin phrase "post hoc, ergo propter hoc." Loosely translated, that means, "One event followed another, so the first caused the second." Consider the following sentence, and you'll understand how this fallacy works. "I wore these socks and won the game; therefore, the socks helped me win the game."

Gun controllers often take this fallacy one step further to what I call Disordered Post Hoc. Not only do they make a Post Hoc error, they get the order wrong. An event is somehow caused by a later event. You'll see this especially with their claims about England - they pretend that low murder rates followed gun control when, in fact, the rates already existed before gun control.

This Disordered Post Hoc is at the center of a Dunblane laws "fact" sheet written by some fellow named Philip Alpers who fancies himself a "gun policy researcher" (Dunblane laws are those enacted after that madman shot up a school in Dunblane Scotland in 1996). Alpers' April 2000 "fact" sheet is posted at various places, including the Bell Campaign (Million Moms) web site at http://www.bellcampaign.org/fact/Pub...shguncrime.htm .

Alpers writes, "As the UK handgun ban took effect, the most closely related category of crime also dropped: 'The number of handgun offences...fell by 21% in 1997, near which level they have remained'" (his ellipses; he's quoting the UK home office in the latter half).

Read that carefully: "As the UK handgun ban took effect." Laws don't cause change simultaneous to their passage; they cause change afterwards. The ban was passed in in 1997. As Alpers states elsewhere in his "fact" sheet, the confiscation program took until March 1998. How can the 1997 drop be attributed to a 1997 law (a piece of paper) that took until 1998 to put into effect?

Further, look at the last clause: "near which level they have remained." This means handgun
offenses **did not drop** after 1997 - they stayed at the same level that they were the year the ban was passed. Since the true measure of a law is what happens *after* its passage, then we have to conclude from this that - at best - it had no effect.

Now, consider this sentence from Alpers' "fact" sheet: "The number of gun-related deaths has also declined markedly. In 1998/99, 49 people were victims of firearm homicide in Britain, down 66% since 1993."

1993? 1993?? 1993????

What does a measurement from 1993 have to do with the effectiveness of a ban passed in 1997 and not fully in effect until 1998? What this sentence shows is that there already was a downward trend in gun homicides prior to the law, raising questions as to whether it was the Dunblane laws or the already existing trend that was responsible for any decline after 1997.

In fact, look at the numbers for all the years, from 1993, and we see that the downward trend preceded the Dunblane laws http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib.../rp99-056.pdf)

Gun Homicides
1993 - - - 74
1994 - - - 66
1995 - - - 70
1996 - - - 49
1997 - - - 59
1998 - - - 49 (Alpers' number, not in my source)

But what strikes me is the focus on "crimes involving guns" rather than crime overall. Does a reduction in "gun related homicides" translate into a reduction in murders overall? That's important, after all: Small consolation to the family of a victim "lucky" enough to be stabbed to death rather than shot.

In fact - besides having nothing to do with the Dunblane laws - the downward trend in gun
murders did not equal a reduction in murder overall.

Overall Homicides (% by gun)
1993 - - - 565 (13%)
1994 - - - 632 (10%)
1995 - - - 663 (10%)
1996 - - - 584 (10%)
1997 - - - 650 (9%)

For 1993 to 1997, despite a nearly 34% drop in gun homicides, there was a 15% increase in overall homicides. Gun murders simply become a lower percentage of overall murders - it looks like the theory of weapon substitution played out.

Not only does Alpers' make a Disordered Post Hoc argument, he makes the worst of all gun controller mistakes: forgetting that the goal is saving lives overall.

Shotgun · November 3, 2000, 10:26 AM

Dischord, don't you know that it is more acceptable to be killed in a "non" gun murder than if it were a "gun" murder? Where is your head, man?

twist996 · November 3, 2000, 05:27 PM

dischord...gonna post your reply on the squirrel, if ya don't mind....

shotgun....that's the thinking....

------------------
speak now, or forever hold your peace

dischord · November 3, 2000, 07:21 PM

Shotgun, I can just hear the grabbers say, "Ma'am, you should feel lucky that your son was stabbed to death instead of shot."

Twist, feel free to post it.

**Don Gwinn** · November 3, 2000, 08:22 PM

Hey, Dischord, here's a warm and fuzzy feeling: my 8th-graders insist that Post Hoc is NOT a fallacy, because if you wear a pair of socks and win a game, you can't prove that the socks didn't help you win the game somehow.

This is the the same group that inspired my reading aid to tell me "You know, you'd get in trouble for saying this, but this group makes every rule they teach you about positive teaching invalid." He's right.

November 3, 2000, 07:39 AM	#1
twist996 Member Join Date: October 20, 2000 Posts: 86	a fellow 'nut' posted this for us the frugal squirrel http://www.millionmommarch.com/home/...ws&action=info Gun Crime Drops in Britain Following Tough New Firearm Laws In 1996 Thomas Hamilton, a licensed gun owner, used two lawfully held semi-automatic handguns to shoot to death 16 school children and their teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland. Two years later in March, 1998 the British government completed its program to ban all handguns, buying them back from gun owners at market rates. In the two years since the destruction of 162,000 civilian-owned handguns, official figures show that stricter British gun laws were followed by a 17% reduction in all crimes involving firearms, excluding air guns. -- (UK Home Office Statistical Bulletin 22/99, 26 Nov 1999; Table 10) As the UK handgun ban took effect, the most closely-related category of crime also dropped: "The number of handgun offences… fell by 21% in 1997, near which level they have remained." -- (UK Home Office, Criminal Statistics England & Wales, 1998; 3.10. Mar 2000) The number of gun-related deaths has also declined markedly. In 1998/99, 49 people were victims of firearm homicide in Britain, down 66% since 1993. -- (UK Home Office, Criminal Statistics England & Wales, 1998. Mar 2000) As they refer exclusively to handgun-related and firearm-related crime, these data could be the most reliable on which to base an assessment of the effects of the British handgun ban. However, less relevant data are often cited to suggest a reverse effect. The number of reported robberies in Britain has grown markedly in recent years. However, those who cite this fact rarely mention that, in the absence of large numbers of firearms in the community, 96-98% of these encounters bear no relation to guns. "The proportion of robberies in which firearms were used in 1998/99 was 4.4%, continuing the recent downward trend… Some research suggests that the proportion of real guns used in robberies may be only about half the estimate obtained from the police." -- (UK Home Office, Criminal Statistics England & Wales, 1998; 3.13 & 3.25. Mar 2000) As only 2% to 4% of reported robberies in Britain involve a genuine firearm, the potential lethality of these encounters would seem to be greatly reduced. It is hard to see how the number of offences in which victims are threatened with knives, air guns, toy guns -- or in one case a cucumber in a coat pocket -- can be cited as evidence of a crime wave in Britain attributable to the removal of handguns from civilian ownership. Instead, the apparent displacement of robbery weapon from firearm to cucumber might be seen as worthy of encouragement. British citizens remain 50 times less likely to fall victim to gun homicide than Americans. British police officers are unarmed. None were seriously injured by firearms in 1998/99. 41% of American households contain a firearm, compared to 4% in Britain Philip Alpers, gun policy researcher Auckland & San Francisco E-mail: alpers@ibm.net April, 2000 ------------------------------------------ funny, ain't it, how so many people think britain is having a rough go with gun control, and this guy proves that it just ain't so.....hhhhmmmm, something smells fishy.... ------------------ speak now, or forever hold your peace

November 3, 2000, 10:16 AM	#2
dischord Senior Member Join Date: October 1, 2000 Location: Virginia Posts: 945	I wrote an essay attacking this $#!t a few months ago. I'll paste it below. Bottom line is that Alpers' essay contains at least two major flaws. 1) He judges the effectiveness of a law passed in 1997 and put into effect in 1998 by looking at trends from 1993. 2) He ignores simultaneous rise in non gun murders Sean Disordered Post Hoc How a Gun Controller Pretends Post Dunblane U.K. Laws Were Effective by Sean Oberle There is a logical fallacy called Post Hoc, which is short for the Latin phrase "post hoc, ergo propter hoc." Loosely translated, that means, "One event followed another, so the first caused the second." Consider the following sentence, and you'll understand how this fallacy works. "I wore these socks and won the game; therefore, the socks helped me win the game." Gun controllers often take this fallacy one step further to what I call Disordered Post Hoc. Not only do they make a Post Hoc error, they get the order wrong. An event is somehow caused by a later event. You'll see this especially with their claims about England - they pretend that low murder rates followed gun control when, in fact, the rates already existed before gun control. This Disordered Post Hoc is at the center of a Dunblane laws "fact" sheet written by some fellow named Philip Alpers who fancies himself a "gun policy researcher" (Dunblane laws are those enacted after that madman shot up a school in Dunblane Scotland in 1996). Alpers' April 2000 "fact" sheet is posted at various places, including the Bell Campaign (Million Moms) web site at http://www.bellcampaign.org/fact/Pub...shguncrime.htm . Alpers writes, "As the UK handgun ban took effect, the most closely related category of crime also dropped: 'The number of handgun offences...fell by 21% in 1997, near which level they have remained'" (his ellipses; he's quoting the UK home office in the latter half). Read that carefully: "As the UK handgun ban took effect." Laws don't cause change simultaneous to their passage; they cause change afterwards. The ban was passed in in 1997. As Alpers states elsewhere in his "fact" sheet, the confiscation program took until March 1998. How can the 1997 drop be attributed to a 1997 law (a piece of paper) that took until 1998 to put into effect? Further, look at the last clause: "near which level they have remained." This means handgun offenses did not drop after 1997 - they stayed at the same level that they were the year the ban was passed. Since the true measure of a law is what happens after its passage, then we have to conclude from this that - at best - it had no effect. Now, consider this sentence from Alpers' "fact" sheet: "The number of gun-related deaths has also declined markedly. In 1998/99, 49 people were victims of firearm homicide in Britain, down 66% since 1993." 1993? 1993?? 1993???? What does a measurement from 1993 have to do with the effectiveness of a ban passed in 1997 and not fully in effect until 1998? What this sentence shows is that there already was a downward trend in gun homicides prior to the law, raising questions as to whether it was the Dunblane laws or the already existing trend that was responsible for any decline after 1997. In fact, look at the numbers for all the years, from 1993, and we see that the downward trend preceded the Dunblane laws http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib.../rp99-056.pdf) Gun Homicides 1993 - - - 74 1994 - - - 66 1995 - - - 70 1996 - - - 49 1997 - - - 59 1998 - - - 49 (Alpers' number, not in my source) But what strikes me is the focus on "crimes involving guns" rather than crime overall. Does a reduction in "gun related homicides" translate into a reduction in murders overall? That's important, after all: Small consolation to the family of a victim "lucky" enough to be stabbed to death rather than shot. In fact - besides having nothing to do with the Dunblane laws - the downward trend in gun murders did not equal a reduction in murder overall. Overall Homicides (% by gun) 1993 - - - 565 (13%) 1994 - - - 632 (10%) 1995 - - - 663 (10%) 1996 - - - 584 (10%) 1997 - - - 650 (9%) For 1993 to 1997, despite a nearly 34% drop in gun homicides, there was a 15% increase in overall homicides. Gun murders simply become a lower percentage of overall murders - it looks like the theory of weapon substitution played out. Not only does Alpers' make a Disordered Post Hoc argument, he makes the worst of all gun controller mistakes: forgetting that the goal is saving lives overall.

November 3, 2000, 10:26 AM	#3
Shotgun Senior Member Join Date: May 10, 1999 Location: Central Texas Posts: 202	Dischord, don't you know that it is more acceptable to be killed in a "non" gun murder than if it were a "gun" murder? Where is your head, man?

November 3, 2000, 05:27 PM	#4
twist996 Member Join Date: October 20, 2000 Posts: 86	dischord...gonna post your reply on the squirrel, if ya don't mind.... shotgun....that's the thinking.... ------------------ speak now, or forever hold your peace

November 3, 2000, 07:21 PM	#5
dischord Senior Member Join Date: October 1, 2000 Location: Virginia Posts: 945	Shotgun, I can just hear the grabbers say, "Ma'am, you should feel lucky that your son was stabbed to death instead of shot." Twist, feel free to post it.

November 3, 2000, 08:22 PM	#6
Don Gwinn Staff Join Date: March 9, 2000 Location: Virden, IL Posts: 5,914	Hey, Dischord, here's a warm and fuzzy feeling: my 8th-graders insist that Post Hoc is NOT a fallacy, because if you wear a pair of socks and win a game, you can't prove that the socks didn't help you win the game somehow. This is the the same group that inspired my reading aid to tell me "You know, you'd get in trouble for saying this, but this group makes every rule they teach you about positive teaching invalid." He's right.